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Rh and arroyos, which separated the several bulges of ground, and the earth's surface was of a dull brick-dust red, thinly scrubbed over with coarse grass, ragged sage, and shrublets fit only for the fire. After a desolate drive, we sighted below us the creek La Bonté—so called from a French voyageur—green and bisected by a clear mountain stream whose banks were thick with self-planted trees. In the labyrinth of paths we chose the wrong one: presently we came to a sheer descent of four or five feet, and after deliberation as to whether the vehicle would "take it" or not, we came to the conclusion that we had better turn the restive mules to the right-about. Then, cheered by the sight of our consort, the other wagon, which stood temptingly shaded by the grove of cotton-wood, willows, box elder (Negundo aceroides), and wild cherry, at the distance of about half a mile, we sought manfully the right track, and the way in which the driver charged the minor obstacles was "a caution to mules." We ought to have arrived at 2 45 P.M.; we were about an hour later. The station had yet to be built; the whole road was in a transition state at the time of our travel; there was, however, a new corral for "forting" against Indians, and a kind of leafy arbor, which the officials had converted into a "cottage near a wood."

A little after 4 P.M. we forded the creek painfully with our new cattle—three rats and a slug. The latter was pronounced by our driver, when he condescended to use other language than anathemata, "the meanest cuss he ever seed." We were careful, however, to supply him at the shortest intervals with whisky-drams, which stimulated him, after breaking his whip, to perform a tattoo with clods and stones, kicks and stamps, upon the recreant animals' haunches, and by virtue of these we accomplished our twenty-five miles in tolerable time. For want of other pleasantries to contemplate, we busied ourselves in admiring the regularity and accuracy with which our consort wagon secured for herself all the best teams. The land was a red waste, such as travelers find in Eastern Africa, which after rains sheds streams like blood. The soil was a decomposition of ferruginous rock, here broken with rugged hills, precipices of ruddy sandstone 200 feet high, shaded or dotted with black-green cedars, there cumbered by huge boulders; the ravine-like water-courses which cut the road showed that after heavy rains a net-work of torrents must add to the pleasures of traveling, and the vegetation was reduced to the dull green artemisia, the azalia, and the jaundiced potentil-